Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Yahrtzeit

11.11.2008

Granny never liked going to funerals and so, rarely did. She preferred to celebrate friends, loved ones, and acquaintances while they were here with us on this earth. "It's too much," she'd say. All the crying and carrying on. All the memory-telling and reminiscing that the identified patient couldn't enjoy. Funerals were sad times, and Granny didn't believe in being sad, just feeling "punko" from time to time and getting over that fast.

I always used to joke with her that not only would she outlive us all, but she probably wouldn't even go to her own funeral unless we forced her to. We both always expended a good chuckle over that one.

Nobody is chuckling today.

Granny, as gracefully as she lived on this mottled ball of depleted natural resources and seawater, has permanently gone fishing. Even though she's no longer of flesh and blood, I can clearly see her riding her horse on the beach, the headdress of her 1930's dancing costume flapping in the nor'easterly breeze as she heads for the end of the pier to cast her expertly baited line, singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" quietly under her breath while she waits for the first flounder of the evening to come find her nicely appointed hook.She's gone, you guys. The one thing in this world I thought she'd never be. The one person in this world I thought sure I'd never be without. The one person I'd always wanted to please and impress, although my just being here was pleasing and impressive enough, as it turns out.

Last week, the news of Barack's grandmother dying hit me like a concord. Here he was on the eve of some of the most amazing history that has ever been made, and the woman who helped him find himself left his life. On top of creating a family and an up-til-now impressive professional career, she lived almost long enough to see her grandson do something historically profound and he will use her momentum and life lessons to lead us in a better direction. I cried for his loss.

In some small way, I understand that to mean I have that same responsibility to my family: to use the lessons I have learned from Granny for good, not evil.

Knowing that I was able to spend those two weeks with her last month, and that I was able to take Foo with me so they could kiss and hug about it all offers little solace. Because I am a selfish bitch, I don't want there to be no future. I don't want to face talking about her in the past tense. I don't want to believe that this fairy tale could not have a magically happy ending. And in the same little brain, the thought "she feels no more pain" cuts though all those little ribbons of selfish thinking and turns them into white doves floating beneath the cloud line.

Granny is gone. Summon the angels. Prepare the xanax drip. Locate the lotion-infused tissues. Fuel up the jet. And look the fuck out.

If I want as hopeful a life as Barack promises and Granny realized, I have a lot of work to do myself. But first I must figure out how to share this pain information with my daughter (who only just asked for her Gigi yesterday) without humidifying the air with all this face rain. ["I don't want you to cry, Mommy. I still love Gigi even though she dies." AAAAAgggggggffghghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!]

Granny. I know I always used to ask if -- no, insist that -- I was your favorite. Of course it only now occurs to me today that it doesn't matter if I was your favorite. You were mine. Still are, always will be.

Oi. Air is hard to find. The lights seem darker even though they are on all the way. Coffee tastes bitter instead of nectarly. My head is swimming with water. My eyes are stuffed with sadness.My heart is shattering one fine cleft at a time. With every memory that we will never remember together again, another vein of sorrow erupts.

To the most beautiful human I have ever known, I am glad I never knew that loving you this much meant hurting this hard. I promise to try in my own way keep the ripple effect of your amazingness in motion as long as I am here, and pass the tools you have given me to Foo and Bub in your honor.

To my family, I am sorry for our loss. Our family tree has beautiful roots, though. I will see you all soon.

I love you, Granny.

* * * * *

I just spoke with Granny's caregiver who has quickly become part of our family in the fivish years she has been part of our family. Apparently Granny had a big day yesterday. She asked to be taken to the grocery store first thing in the morning and promptly went shopping. Then she caught a Madagascar 2 matinee, indulged in pastrami at her favorite deli, cruised the KrispyKreme window, and spent most of the day laughing as she was chauffeured past all of the landmarks in her memory. She asked Nikki to drive her downtown to check out the old department stores, her childhood home and elementary school.

Last week my mother was sending me text messages full of pictures of Granny-On-the-Go. Pedicures, hair-doings, luncheons with all the other old birds.

She was cramming it all in. As much as she could stuff into this pillowcase called life. I'd say if ever there was a mode of living that could surmise Granny's life credo since I've known her it's "Live it up." Crack open the champale. It's Granny tribute day.

11.15.2008

We spent the entire early afternoon plotzing around the Richmond airport awaiting the first stint of a 3-legged return flight home. The original itinerary got misread, so we got misplaned, and then we were all really effing miserable. Bub was being a whiny bee-eye, Foo was being a pushy know-it-all, Boyband was being a sulky gyna because he was the itinerary holder and he thought I was mad, and I? I just didn't really give a shit. I wasn't mad. Just numb.

I feel like I've come home in a deeper state of unrest then when we left. Tireder, bitchier, loster.

The flight back east was uneventful, save for the fact that our seats were literally flung far about the cabin due to the last-minute acquisition of tickets. The attendant audibly addressed the fully loaded airbird without the benefit of the megaphone. "We have a family of four here traveling together, but the small children have been separated from their parents. Will anyone be willing to trade seats so they can at least sit together two and two?"

Cue the crickets, blank stares, and averted glances. Nobody said dick. Not one parent on that plane? Guess not. Nary a kind soul? Nope. Apparently not one. A point more finely sharpened when the little girl sitting one row in front and to the left of us (once another attendant finally took our seating matter into his own hands) starting puking her face off, all over her parents and her infant sibling - the mother wailing in horror "Help! Help us!" Having been that mother every time I boarded a plane with PukoniaMcFooBags ages 0-2.25, I scrambled to find a bag, a raft of paper towels, and my best empathetic demeanor. I totally wasn't up for the challenge, but I wasn't going to sit there and let that poor woman know she was completely alone at the back of that plane.

In reference to another topic entirely, my oft-assholish brother-in-law summed it up best, "When the economy is this bad, people stop caring." I will simply add that in reference to this particular instance that people simply stop caring about other people. The mindset seems to be, "How are you more fucked than me?" Hey YOU (the universal assholey you that doesn't help a separated or puke-laden family on a plane), there's always someone more fucked than you. All ways. There were people on that plane more fucked than us, to be sure, but I still wansn't flying with one each of us seated in rows 6, 14, 22, and 38, much as I might have likedta.

We disembarked in Richmond, picked up our Grand Caravan, and I promptly laid myself out on the funeral home parking lot by concussing my head with the tail gate. A goose egg and omnipresent migraine ensued.

We entered the visitation (for lack of a better, I have no idea what to call it since the Jews don’t rock a public open casket) near the end and were greeted by the loooooooong faces of my mother’s sister and my mother’s sister’s daughter. If I write anything more negative detailed about them here, my mother would beat my ass. That said, if I ever do write a book, there will be a full 400-page chapter on my mother’s sister. Thank cheebs for pseudonyms.

I made eye contact with my older sister as I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Dana?” I proceeded to be introduced (try to follow along here) to the First Lady of the pentecostal church Granny’s granddaughter-like caregiver (for whom I have a very deep affection, so no shit-talking) attended. I remember nothing of the conversation after that point because I was still trying to make sense of the introduction. Did Nikki just say first lady? Tell me she brought Michelle Obama with her.

As I scanned the room looking for the First Lady-Elect, surprisingly, something equally surprising caught my eye. “Is Granny in there?” I asked my older sister, gesturing with my head toward the coffin lining the back wall of the room. She nodded. Why I wasn’t prepared for the sight of the plain box containing my Granny as I used to know her, I could not tell you. Oh wait. Yes, I can. Whenever there is a family gathering, Granny is at the epicenter of the festivities. Holding court. Carrying on. Not lying dead in a box along the wall. Not a fan.

I milled around aimlessly trying to avoid certain aforementioned relatives while getting right with the idea of Granny in a box.

My milling brought me to the feet of my mother’s sister’s husband-type-guy. He and I usually get along very well. We both remarked that Granny would most certainly not approve of the situation, what with her hating funerals and all. It was all so prescribed. So proper. So funerary. We decided, not at all jokingly, that we should abscond with Granny and her caskety place of final repose, haul ass to the beach, and bury her in the back yard of the beach house. That sounded about perfect to us. Just like Nate did on Six Feet Under when his wife met an untimely death. He switched the remains, giving the family some faux cremains, and buried his wife (an actress I can’t stand), boxless and uncharred, in Joshua Tree National Park.

My mother interrupted our scheming to offer us the opportunity to say goodbye to Granny one last time. To see her. My mother’s sister’s daughter tried to talk me and my own sisters out of our acceptance of this offer. “I don’t want to upset anybody, but you should know she hasn’t been embalmed,” added Mom.

“Oh god, then definitely not, you guys,” said my mother’s sister’s daughter (a Fulbright-winning anthropological doctor, you should know) moments before she split. The funeral director appeared from the shadows and deftly set to work revealing a perfectly still Granny, sleeping as I’d seen her do a thousand times over through the years. I’d swear she was breathing, but precious logic prevails. I hated to succumb to the realization that it was only the ruched top exposing her clavicle by way of a very flattering neckline that was playing morbid pranks on me.

My sisters began crying. Instead of crying immediately, I spoke to her. First order of business: I gave her permission to haunt me, as per Kat’s instructions in my comments. My sisters chimed in, “Me, too.” “Me too, Grams.” Then I told her what I told you, that “even though I always insisted that I am your favorite, you are mine and that’s the only thing that matters.”

As my sisters took their turns saying all of the things we have each said to her daily, weekly, annually, adoringly, I smoothed her kinky hair. I gently kissed her frigid forehead a thousand times and reached for her ice-cold hand, holding it in mine as if it would warm her back into my life. As you may have guessed, it did not. But I kept trying anyway because her skin was as soft as I had ever remembered it, and if I let go and the casket got closed, I would never have the opportunity to remember that softness firsthand again.

As my sisters stood holding one another, and I Granny’s hand, a thought occurred to me. Besides climbing in and going with her, what can I put in that box so she won’t be alone in there for the rest of eternity? I gently let go of her hand, so as not to hurt her, and darted over to my satchel sitting nearby on the table. I paged forward to the sheet in my daily planner that contained my birth date and scribbled her a note. I told her that if she was going to be gone forever, I wanted to be with her and that this was the best I could come up with on such short notice. If I were more organized, or it had occurred to me before that instant, I would have sent her off with a care package of photographs, memories, and inside jokes. But I was there with her in some infintesimil way nonetheless and we would always, always, always be together. My sisters followed suit, each of us sending Granny into forever with little bits of lovenote crammed into that tiny final resting place with her.

Granny was famous for her note writing. That was how her friends and relatives knew she was probably ill. For the first time in damn near a century, nobody had been receiving notes, birthday, or anniversary cards. Red flag city. If you called her to talk to her, you’d never know anything was wrong because she’d never say so, nor would her words or demeanor betray anything. You all know more than most of her friends about how ill she was these last few months. Few people knew about her heart attack a couplefew years ago. Nearly nobody knew about the cancer. That is how she rolled. She literally saw no sense in complaining. Just suck it up and get crackin’, skeeter.

I kissed her one hundred last times and told her I love her times infinity. If I had stayed any longer, her clothes, face, and hair would have been positively soaked with saline. But I would have stayed there forever if I could have.

That was Wednesday.

The funeral was on Thursday afternoon, graveside. Many of my mother’s old friends, associates, and her only former husband – my father -- made the two-hour trek south from DC to pay their respects to the most respectable, including one of my best girls Lib – yet another one of Granny’s adopted grandbabies. She adopted our friends like they were her own flesh and blood.

The rabbi wasted no time pointing out to the collection of mourners that it was pissing down rain; my vernacular, not his. He explained to us that it is widely accepted (by Jews, maybe?) that when it rains on the day of a funeral, god is crying for the loss of one of his most prized creations. The moment the rabbi said that, and I think we all know how I (don’t) feel about god, I swear to all that any of you may believe in, the intensity of the rain heightened and the rabbi was forced to raise his voice to speak over god’s overzealous sobbing. Granny was likely remarking that we needed a good gullywasher. That it’s good for her azaleas. In any case, and that may be the only moment in my lifetime one could call me a believer, I believed the shit out of him.

Of all the notes, emails, cards, and condolences my family has received from those who genuinely knew her, nearly every single one says the same thing. Your grand/mother made me feel like I was the only person in the room when I was with her. She was absolutely the most positive person I have ever met. She was the most warm, welcoming, kindhearted, selfless person in the world. She adopted me as if I were her own. I loved receiving her cards and letters. She was genuine, funny, loving, and loved. She was an inspiration. If it weren’t all true, it would be a grotesque cliché.

After the funeral, when my mother asked the room to show by raised hands those who thought they were Granny’s favorite, you can imagine not one hand was left behind. That’s how she made everyone feel. No wonder I thought it was me, her favorite. I am honored that I have such good company in her favoritism, as much it pains me to see that literally everyone was, indeed, her favorite. Sneaky bird, or old bat, as she liked to refer to herself.

It only occurred to me this morning that in my nearly 35 years on this rotting ball of waste and economic crises, I have never heard Granny raise her voice once. When she busted me with cigs the summer at the beach I lived with her, all she said was, “You better hide these before Poppy sees them.” I’m going to have to work on channeling that one particular bit of Grannyness, for I like to yell. Lately, I have been doing far too much of just that and I am embarrassed by it.

It is Jewish custom for mourners to aid in the burial process by casting earth atop the casket after it is lowered into the ground. It’s a symbolic gesture; a sendoff of effort and love; a promise to remember her always. As I filled the business end of the shovel with rocky earth, I could not bring myself to allow the dirt land on her, letting heavy rocks hit her, scaring her with a thud. Every time a rock sounded from someone else’s shovelful, I cringed and apologized to her in my mind. When it was my turn, I couldn’t shoot for the coffin, instead aiming for the outskirts of the well. As the dirt left the shovel, my tears followed, staining the coffin from several feet above. Another bit of me in there with her. Foo, at my side, picked up a fistful of dry mud and told Gigi she loved her and missed her as she set the muck free to fall.

When we returned from the funeral, discussions were had regarding which of Granny’s things would be dispersed to whom, as my mother’s sister et al would be leaving forthwith. I don’t mean to imply that scavenging was happening. But it would be the only time for a face-to-faces en masse and every single one of us has a thing or things that truly and viscerally remind us of her. After forfeiting the only piece of her furniture I requested – the completely out-of-tune piano – because my mother’s sister’s daughter wanted it too, I went about the task of identifying all the other things of hers I needed.

My entire inheritance list is as follows:Two tubes of half-used 99¢ lipstickSix small, ancient fancy perfume sample bottles she used to display on her dresserHer everyday glassesThe neck pillow that relieved her neck arthritisHer most recent bathrobe and shower capA wad of used tissues from the bottom of her purseThe gold clip-on earrings she wore daily during the 80sHer egg coddlers: 2 small, 2 largeA set of ceramic measuring cups from England

For Foo:One of her many charm braceletsA gold locket necklace with three little hearts

For Bub:A wall map of the world

When I told my younger sister about the things I wanted and had taken – being the only one of us who had no designs on furniture or anything else of monetary value -- she looked at me quizzically, “Jesus, Dana. Are you going to try to clone her?” Uh. The thought had genuinely not occurred to me. But now that you mention it…

By now we’re on the second leg of the three-legged journey home. The kids are finally sleeping after a hellacious time wrestling Bub into compliance, and trying to keep Foo in check without losing our collective shit. Boyband has been nothing short of heroic in his wakefulness, watchfulness, fatherliness, and vigilance – especially since I got completely shithoused the afternoon before we left for the funeral, even though I still had to concoct the kid food to keep up my end of the tuition bargain and deliver it before our 6am flight with the help of a friend Thanks for the airlift, Dingus. I love you and I owe you.

Granny, I think, was relieved that I had found a mate who not only is so perfect for me, but is just so perfect all by himself. She adored that handsome Boyband and spoke of him like a crowned prince. I think out of all of us – me and my sibs, that is, she was worried about my decision-making in that department the most. I am grateful that I found him early enough to introduce our beautiful spawn to her for her amusement and mutual adoration for the short time they got to know one another.

Last night, as we were having one final toast together as a family to honor of Granny and all that she gave us, my mother paid me the most wonderful flabbergasting compliment of my life. I will never forget it, and I may never need to hear my mother say another kind word to or about me again. “I dunno, D. I think Grams was a repressed you.” Were it only true, amen.

We’ll be back home any minute now. I don’t expect my face to stop leaking any time soon, and I don’t have the strength to try. I need to get home and get haunted by Granny. I need to bury my face in her neck pillow and figure out how to enact being more like her. No Much Less complaining, making lemonade out of life’s lemons, trying to treat everyone like my favorite, keeping up with notes, birthdays, and anniversaries email, being more selfless, and being a mother of whom my children can be proud. So that by the time I’m an old bat, my grandkids will love me as much as we all did Granny.

Tonight I will sit beside my inherited artifacts and sob by the fire wishing for a life that makes sense: one where love never dies, money never kills passion, and one where any family that I have, chosen by me or for me, doesn't scatter and abandon me when life (i.e. The Manny/Gavin) is at its cruelest.

Granny. My spouse. Briefly, my children. My siblings. Rebecca. Dingus. I have lost so much in the way of love this past year. At the very least, according to Granny, I only have to get around it all -- not over it. I like a smaller, more attainable goal lately, so I'm just going to try to get through today. And tomorrow I will let myself feel the pain. Granny would have hated my soon-to-be-new tattoo, Gawdlubber.

There is no greater sense of loss that I can imagine (save losing a child) beyond losing eternally the one person who invented unconditional love and showered you with nothing but. My heart aches for me today, but only because Granny was the only one who genuinely knew how to fix it when it was broken.

6 comments:

My heart goes out to you - especially today. I lost my unconditional person (my dad) 12 years ago and, damn, if it doesn't feel like it was just yesterday. They're still with us, just not as convenient as before.Wishing you peace in your treasured memories.~S

Dana,Reading this made my heart break once again in the precise same manner it did a year ago when she flew with the angels. I know what it is to lose your favourite person (lost my grandad 10 years ago and I still cry sometimes).I feel better by thinking that I survived him and therefore it is my duty to spread all of my grandad's awesomeness between the 5 out of 13 grandsons/daughters he had and didn't get the chance to know him. I try to live with his principles in mind and give to others what she gave me.I recently turned into my cousin's favourite person and I feel proud and honoured to be able to perpetuate my grandad's legacy. I know he's around, reminding me what's important when I need to be reminded.So is your Granny.

I've been (lurking) around since BMC days, followed to Katie and now to KIC...maybe you remember me, maybe not. Anywho, I lost my Grandma exactly a month ago and I swear the only person who could understand the gravity of losing her is you. I've cried for the last month, for my Grandma and for your Granny. She was the only person who got me and now she's gone and reading your words...exactly. I dunno what else to say, but thanks for writing what I feel.